


The Boxer

by Nomme_de_Plume



Series: The Pursued, the Pursuing - AU [14]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:32:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomme_de_Plume/pseuds/Nomme_de_Plume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little trip into Gendry's head as he faces a major change. Set in Prohibition-era United States. If you haven't read our other works in this series, give them a shot!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boxer

Gendry stood in the middle of his apartment, hands in his pockets while he waited. All of his worldly possessions were either in a box at his feet, or in a lumpy canvas bag leaning against the broken down couch. The apartment was quiet, the only sound the clanking of the radiator in the one bedroom.   
  
This was the only place he remembered living, the only place he’d ever called home. By all rights he knew he should be ashamed of it, of the dingy wallpaper and the windows that leaked when the rain came hard, the sounds of the unmarried couple living in the apartment below this one fighting at all hours. He’d stepped in a few times when it got particularly bad, taking the man aside and using his sheer bulk to remind him that it wasn’t right to hit a woman. The man, a ferrety little dewdrop, had sneered up at him, but his eyes had darted everywhere. It would usually be quiet for a week or two, but then the fighting would start up again, and the cycle would repeat itself. Last spring it had stopped for good when Gendry had come home to find the coroner’s truck parked out front. The police had taken the man away in handcuffs and the woman away in a bag, and that had been the end of it.  
  
Gendry had tried not to show how upset he was by the time he was allowed back up into his apartment, but his mother had known. He’d brought her a cup of tea and sat on the edge of her bed to make sure she drank it, and she’d rubbed his back with a hand that was increasingly frail, and had smiled at him. She hadn’t said a word, and he hadn’t wanted her to. Speaking was starting to get taxing for her, and her declining strength terrified Gendry.  
  
His mother had died with the summer, and he’d been sleeping when it had happened. She hadn’t opened her eyes in about a week, maybe more, but that hadn’t mattered to him. He still worked spoonfuls of broth and water through her dry lips, had begged their elderly neighbor to watch over her while he was at work. While he was at the car plant, he took solace in the clanking machines, the yelled, gruff conversations, the noise. The noise was company, and the noise was safe, and the noise was warm.  
  
At home it was silent. He refused to turn on the radio now in case his mother called out to him, or made any noise at all. Her breathing was soft and shallow, but he was so attuned to hearing it that he’d wake up in the middle of the night, springing off the couch that had served as his bed for most of his life when she’d cough. Towards the end he didn’t remember sleeping at all, but he knew he had to have been. He’d blink and ten minutes would pass, twenty, and he’d creep into his mother’s room to see if she’d somehow woken up. After three or four days of this he’d collapsed onto the couch, too tired to keep his eyes open anymore.  
  
It was dawn when he’d awoken and the silence was thicker than before. His gut twisting, Gendry had pushed open the bedroom door. “Ma?” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Mom?”  
  
The window had been open, that he’d remembered. The radiator didn’t work right and would start puffing out steam at the worst time, usually in the middle of summer. To compensate his mother kept her window open all the time, preferring the noise of the city the breezes would carry in to the stifling hot. The morning was still cool, and still quiet, and the curtains billowed lightly as he approached the bed. He’d known as soon as he saw her face. Hell, he’d known as soon as he’d woken up, that she was gone. Her cheek was cold when he touched it, and he’d jerked his hand away but only for a minute. Gendry sat on the edge of the bed and had collected her frail body in his arms, trying to blink back the tears that refused to leave.   
  
The boys at his gym had pooled their money for him so she didn’t have to be buried in the Potter’s Field outside of town, and he’d visited her grave nearly every day after she went into it. The textile factory that had killed her didn’t even remember her working there when he’d called them to inform them of her death, but the Ford factory had given him half a day to grieve.   
  
The bill collectors waited nearly that long. It was sheer Providence that his sister and his father’s money had turned up when they did, and that it was enough to pay off most of the bills. Gendry would be ok as long as there was work, but now there wasn’t even that anymore, and soon there wouldn’t even be the apartment. There would just be Gendry with box of his mother’s knick-knacks and photos and books, little meaningless things that he couldn’t bring himself to pawn and couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else’s hands on them.  
  
Maybe it was Providence that made the transmission on the Stark’s old Caddy give out, or maybe it was the stars aligning just right, or maybe it was just a shitty transmission. Gendry didn’t know, and wasn’t the type to put much thought into it. He was just eager to work with his hands again, doing something other than boxing with them, and the day his sister and her detective had wed, he’d shown Catelyn Stark and her head of grounds exactly what he could do. Losing himself in the small intricacies of manual work had felt wonderful. It had been the first time in months where he had been able to let the thoughts of impending homelessness and ruination fall to the back of his mind. _Although c’mon, you’re  bastard without a penny to your name. How much farther can you really fall?_  
  
Gendry’s hands fisted in his pockets now while he waited. _Who gives a shit if you didn’t know your father? You didn’t need him. Mom didn’t need him. He certainly didn’t need either of you, and you’re better off for it. His jaw clenched. You certainly didn’t say no to his money, though. Jumped right on that train, didn’t you?_  
  
He exhaled through his nose, trying to get ahold of his temper and heard footsteps coming down the hall. Gendry glanced up as there was a brief rap on his door, and pulled it open.  
  
“I’ve got the truck downstairs.” Jory Cassel said. “You ready to go?”  
  
Gendry took one last look around the only place he’d called home. He shouldered the canvas bag holding his clothes, and picked up the box with his mother’s things. “Yeah. I’m done here.”


End file.
